The Battle of Alberta, CFL-style, ramped up a notch last November when the hapless Edmonton Eskimos hired Chris Jones as head coach.

Via geography, via history, the Eskimos have long ranked as the chief rival of the Calgary Stampeders — even in spite of the woeful struggles of the Green and Gold in recent years.

But the addition of Jones, considered a villain in these parts since abandoning the Stamps in 2011 to join the Toronto Argonauts, vaults the Edmonton-Calgary rivalry to a whole new level.

Also: Thursday’s game at Commonwealth Stadium will mark the deepest in the season the Stamps (3-0) and Esks (4-0) meet with flawless records.

Let a new chapter of hatred begin . . .

“It’s going to be a huge game,” whistles Calgary fullback Rob Cote. “A Western opponent is always huge, and the Battle of Alberta has been a little one-sided as of late.

“That squad is looking good, and we’ve got a little bit of bad blood with Chris Jones, so we know it’s going to be a battle.”

A little bit of bad blood? Try a great deal of bad blood between Jones and his former compatriots in arms.

At the conclusion of the 2011 season, the Stamps were blindsided when Jones jumped ship in a lateral move to become the defensive co-ordinator in Toronto.

“He thinks he has the jump on lots of our coaches and lots of our players,” Cote says “And he gets his guys excited, and they play well against us.”

“We know he’s going to have those boys riled up. It’s going to be a smash mouth physical, grind-it-out kind of game.”

If that’s the case, the Stamps best shake off the doldrums of an uninspiring 10-7 victory Friday night over the winless Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Sure, style points count for nothing, but the Calgary offence simply stalled against an Orlando Steinhauer defence that primarily rushed three and dropped nine men back into coverage — a scheme that stymied Stamps quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell.

The victory came as a direct result of a Calgary defence that has surrendered just one touchdown in three games.

“The defence, man, they stepped up at every single point they had to,” Mitchell says. “That was the biggest thing for us, watching those guys have our back time and time again. We weren’t at our best.

“It’s always OK to win ugly.”

If Jones has his way, Thursday’s game could get ugly on the strength of an imposing defence led by former Stampeder rush end Odell Willis.

Willis anointed himself the so-called Mayor of Swaggerville in Winnipeg. Judging by the strut of the Edmonton defence through four games this season, Swaggerville just might have relocated to the City of Champions.

Stamps slotback Nik Lewis, no stranger to swagger himself, admits to having doubts when the Eskimos hired Jones as the man in charge.

“I didn’t know how it would work as a head coach, but it looks like it’s going pretty well,” Lewis says. “He makes a lot of changes.”

By changes, Lewis means Jones’ penchant to switch guys up for what he considers more athletic specimens.

“We won the Grey Cup and we had like eight new starters the next year on defence. Toronto wins the Grey Cup and they have 10 new starters the next year. You can’t have that much turnover on offence and expect to win games. Now they’re out of the gate 4-0, you don’t have to worry about changes. But if they were 0-4, what’s going to happen?”

As a sign of the intensity of the pending battle, Jones is closing Tuesday’s practice to the media. On Sunday, Stamps head coach John Hufnagel said he has no plans to do the same here in Calgary.

“He might be here, just hanging out,” Lewis says, motioning to the empty seats at McMahon. “A short drive to Calgary. He probably wants to come up and get a nice burger or something at Huff’s burgers.”

Hufnagel, for one, isn’t buying into hype over Jones vs. the Calgary Stampeders. He just sees the resurgence of Edmonton as a win for everyone involved.

“It’s irrelevant who the head coaches are,” he says. “It’s great for the province of Alberta. I talked to my team this afternoon about it. We have three games, and the Battle of Alberta is back.

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Stamps gearing up for first truly meaningful Battle of Alberta game in years